Key documents for the sub-category on nutrition and WASH

This thread is a "sticky thread" which means it will always remain at the top of this sub-category.
It contains a recommendation and orientation for newcomers regarding the most important five documents in the thematic area of "Nutrition and WASH".

The selection of documents is so far based on what I've seen coming up in people's posts and e-mails. I am open to feedback if others think that other documents or links should be selected here. Nowadays, WASH and nutrition publications seem to often have focus on stunted growth, so you'll see some documents and links dealing with that issue in particular.

Recommended top five documents in the thematic area of "Nutrition and WASH", in reverse chronological order:

(1)
Generation Nutrition (2015) The Role of Water, Sanitation & Hygiene in the fight against child undernutrition, Prevention Factsheet 01, produced by the Generation Nutrition global campaign team, WaterAid and End Water Poverty on behalf of Generation Nutrition.
www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2385

This factsheet is the first in a series by generation nutrition looking at the different ways of preventing child undernutrition, and focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). It explains how WASH and nutritional outcomes for children are intimately linked and how improved WASH reduces undernutrition, thereby helping to break the cycle of poverty and transform people’s lives.

This publication summarizes the current evidence on the benefits of WASH for improving nutrition outcomes and describes how WASH interventions can be integrated into nutrition programmes. It provides practical suggestions, targeted at nutrition programme managers and implementers, on both “what” WASH interventions should be included in nutrition programmes and “how” to include them. It also seeks to help the WASH community to better understand their role, both as providers of technical expertise in WASH interventions and in prioritizing longer-term improvements to WASH infrastructure in areas where undernutrition is a concern.

(3)
Velleman, Y., Pugh, I. (2015). Under-nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene - Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) play a fundamental role in improving nutritional outcomes. A successful global effort to tackle under-nutrition must include WASH. WaterAid and SHARE (Sanitation and Applied Research for Equity consortium), UK
www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/1794

This short briefing note is explaining the links between undernutrition and WASH. The relationship between nutrition and WASH is complex, with multiple and overlapping pathways. Unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene are directly linked to undernutrition in children through three key pathways: diarrhoea, intestinal worms (soil-transmitted helminths) and environmental enteric dysfunction (EED). Action and collaboration between the WASH and nutrition sectors are urgently needed at global, national and programmatic levels.

The paper gives guidance and some practical suggestions on making WASH programmes more nutrition-sensitive and on how nutrition programmes can better incorporate WASH aspects. Made suggestions are divided into six categories: During the assessment phase; During counselling and health promotion activities; When strengthening overall community services; At institutional level (government, NGO); Under emergency response programmes; Through joint research projects

To reframe undernutrition for a better balance of understanding and interventions, we propose two inclusive concepts: the FTIs and the 5 As. The first two As – availability and access – are oral, about food intake, while the last three As – absorption, antibodies and allopathogens – are novel categories, anal and internal, about FTIs and what happens inside the body. These concepts have implications for research, professional teaching and training, and policy and practice.

You can find further important documents and website links dealing with this topic here:

Please provide your feedback. What do you think of this selection? We can update it from time to time.

Regards,
Elisabeth

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P.S. Documents which I had earlier on considered to be in the Top-5 but have decided not to include in the most important 5 documents for newcomers (I will delete or edit this P.S. once I've received feedback from others):

This document is a compilation of main facts, existing evidence and remaining research gaps regarding the link between inadequate sanitary conditions and its underestimated impact on undernutrition and stunting, particularly for children under five years of age. This is a draft version.

Researchers are exploring the possibility that poor hygiene and a lack of sanitation induce a gut disorder called environmental enteropathy (EE) that diverts energy from growth toward an ongoing fight against subclinical infection. Nutritionists are now collaborating with experts in a field known as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and their combined efforts are helping to galvanize regional programs to improve hygiene in countries afflicted with high stunting rates.

The first section of this document explains the links between WASH interventions and undernutrition as well as the important role the WASH sector has to play within a strategy to combat undernutrition. The second section highlights the low priority and poor funding that the WASH sector obtains within national and international nutrition programmes.

Published since 1972, EHP has been online-only since January 2013. EHP is open access, and all content is available for free online.

Permissions and Copyright: EHP is a publication of the U.S. Federal Government, and its content lies in the public domain. No permission is required to reuse EHP content. However, use of materials published in EHP should be acknowledged (for example, “Reproduced from Environmental Health Perspectives”) and a link provided to the article from which the material was reproduced.

And more information from their website (perhaps more people should publish articles on WASH and health topics there!):

Environmental Health Perspectives (ISSN-L 0091-6765) is a monthly peer-reviewed journal of research and news published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The mission of EHP is to serve as a forum for the discussion of the interrelationships between the environment and human health by publishing high-quality research and news of the field. With an impact factor of 7.98, EHP is ranked 2nd of 87 journals in Toxicology, 3rd of 162 journals in Public, Environmental and Occupational Health, and 4th of 221 journals in Environmental Sciences.

The environmental health sciences include many fields of study and increasingly comprise a multidisciplinary research area. EHP publishes articles from a wide range of scientific disciplines encompassing basic research; epidemiologic studies; risk assessment; relevant ethical, legal, social, environmental justice, and policy topics; longitudinal human studies; and in vitro and in vivo animal research with a clear relationship to human health. Because children are uniquely sensitive to their environments, EHP devotes a research section specifically to issues surrounding children’s environmental health.

Re: Key documents for the sub-category on nutrition and WASH

Though I'm a bit familiar with EHP, you have given a good background information.
Thanks for digging out all that information. I'm sure, that would be quite an information for other forum users, as well.

Re: Key documents for the sub-category on nutrition and WASH

Dear Jona,
Great, yes please, let's revisit this! My post at the start from this thread is from nearly two years ago, so it's high time that it gets updated. The idea with these sticky posts was to highlight the "Top 5" (really just five!) and then give further links where people can find out more.

How about we do it like this. We end this thread (by locking it) and make it unsticky. Then you set up a new post which is in the same style as how mine was (namely the one from 14 Dec 2015) and we make that a sticky post. Sticky means it gets a different color and always stays at the top of this sub-category.
Good plan?